A Norwegian parachutist died after jumping from the second floor of the Eiffel tower when his chute snagged on the monument’s superstructure, Paris police said on Tuesday.
A police spokesperson said the 31-year-old man, who was not named, was wearing a helmet containing a small video camera, trying to film his stunt for a TV commercial advertising a brand of Norwegian clothing.
The spokesperson said the man died at about 10pm on Monday after jumping from the tower’s 115m-high second floor.
”His parachute got caught, he became detached from it, and he hit the first floor more than 50m below,” the officer said. ”He died instantly.”
Police sources said two more Norwegians had been intercepted by private security guards earlier on Monday as they were making their way to the top of the 210m Montparnasse tower on the other side of Paris, apparently to prepare for a similar leap.
The two ”base jumpers” — parachutists who jump from a fixed point rather than an aircraft — were being questioned, as were another two who had climbed the Eiffel tower with the jumper who later died, the police spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for SNTE, the company that runs the tower, said security measures mean very few parachutists or hang-gliders manage to launch themselves from the monument, which opened for the 1889 World Fair.
The first, an Austrian named Franz Reichelt, jumped from the first floor with a parachute of his own invention in 1912. He did not survive.
Most of those who leap from the tower are suicides, but the SNTE spokesperson declined to say exactly how many jump to their death.
”Some years it’s two or three, some years none at all. We don’t talk about it because we don’t want to give people ideas.” — Guardian Unlimited Â